


it's love that will steal your soul, like the devil's own

by wolfchester



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Based on a prompt from tumblr, F/M, Fluff fluff and more fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 09:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3645423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfchester/pseuds/wolfchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it’s 2am and the credits of forrest gump are rolling, and clint realises he’s in love with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's love that will steal your soul, like the devil's own

**Author's Note:**

> song is friendly savage's 'the hold of the lord on my sparrow'

  _But she can take my heart if she wants it_

_She’s all I can love with it, anyway_

_Even though she’ll never stay_

* * *

_“I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time. I miss you, Jenny. If there's anything you need, I won't be far away.”_

The only sound in the room is the soft hum of the television and Kate’s steady breathing against his chest. The credits of ‘Forrest Gump’ are rolling on the screen, but the movie was forgotten by Clint a long time ago.

It’s Kate’s favourite movie, and the boys back at her apartment won’t watch it with her because Tommy says it’s “old” and that if she wanted to watch an old movie, she should watch it with the “old man Barton.” So she did. And here she is.

Kate fell asleep about three-quarters of the way through, just after she’d finished her second bag of popcorn. She’s fallen asleep on his shoulder and Clint would rather die than wake Kate Bishop up from sleep (he did it once and has the scar to prove it). He doesn’t want to shift his body in case she wakes, so he settles for whispering in her ear:

“Katie? Katie-girl? You awake?”

He waits a second, then decides that she’s still asleep and won’t be waking up anytime soon. Clint takes his chance, carefully moving her off his shoulder and across his chest. He fits his arms under hers and shifts so that she’s resting against him like a child (a child who’s snoring like a pig, really).

For a man who is usually so calm under pressure, the task of transporting Kate into his bed is a unusually difficult one. Kate's heavy with sleep and her body is limp, which makes trying to get her around obstacles such as the sides of the couch and the side table without knocking anything over an issue for Clint. He grunts as he stubs his pinky toe on the edge of the kitchen table, but clings tight to Kate and holds back the pain in a grimace. She stirs in her sleep, eyelids moving rapidly, and he thinks he might have woken her up. Holds his breath, waiting for a _“what the fuck are you doing, Clint?”_ It never comes. She relaxes against his chest again, tucking her head into the crook of his arm.

He manages to make it into his bedroom. Carefully rests her on his bed, takes her slippers off and tucks her underneath the mass of blankets he’s got covering his mattress. Clint considers kissing her forehead before he leaves but decides it would be a bit much.

He settles instead for brushing her bangs off her face, and looking at her for a moment, watching her in her sleep. She is _beautiful_. All smooth lines and freckles, dark hair and soft lips. When she’s asleep - not yelling at him or busting up bad guys with her bow and arrows - she looks so young. Clint often forgets how young she is. She’s only nineteen. So _young_.

It all comes clear to him in a flash of lightning, then. The notion that maybe, just maybe, he’s in love with this girl. And maybe Clint doesn’t really know what love means (that’s what Barney, and Jess, and Bobbi tell him). But he knows that when he looks at Kate, he gets a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach. And when he imagines himself in his happiest moment, it’s on the couch with Kate, watching Forrest Gump and trying not to cry. Maybe that means he loves her. Maybe it just means that he likes spending time with her as a totally platonic friend.

(Either way, she’s special to him.)

He sighs and moves towards the door, picking up a blanket off of the floor to use as his bed on the couch. The couch isn’t really made for sleeping on, but that doesn’t deter Clint. (Although it’s definitely less comfortable than it usually is when he’s tired and drunk.) He snuggles himself underneath the blanket that smells like dog and uses one of the small couch pillows as a headrest.

Clint’s just about to drift off to sleep when he hears a groan and a small voice from the other room saying:

“Where the _fuck_ are you going, dumbass? Get back in here.”

He grins at Kate’s voice and throws the blanket off, standing up and making his way back into the bedroom.

She’s still lying exactly where he left her, covered by the non-dog-smelling blanket and eyes closed. She now cracks one eyelid open to peer up at him.

“I’m cold. Come and be my pillow, please.”

He’s about to protest that she already has a pillow, but one sharp look from her silences him. He fakes a disgruntled groan and crawls into bed beside her, not hesitating to wrap his arms around her stomach and nuzzle his face into her neck.

She halfheartedly tries to shrug him off but eventually relaxes into his hold. “You better not snore, or I’ll rip out your fucking oesophagus,” she whispers, and Clint replies by grinning into the skin on the nape of neck.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Princess. Goodnight.” He gently presses his lips to the warm skin of her neck. "Love you," he adds as an afterthought.

He closes his eyes soon after that and falls asleep to the feeling of Kate’s rise and fall of breath in her lungs.

But before everything goes dark, he swears on his goddamn grave that he hears her say:

_“Love you.”_

 

 **end**.


End file.
